Google CEO Larry Page returned to the witness stand in a San Francisco federal courtroom today, but managed to avoid saying much despite nearly an hour of sustained grilling by Oracle lawyer David Boies.

Boies' questioning was stymied in part by the fact that Judge William Alsup (who is overseeing the case) stopped him from asking Page about certain documents that aren't in evidence yet. But while Page may have avoided saying much today, Alsup made it clear that Oracle will be able to put him back on the stand later in the trial if it so desires.

Today was the third day of trial in the Oracle v. Google showdown, which is scheduled to go for eight weeks. In three separate phases, a jury of 12 men and women is scheduled to decide whether Google is violating copyrights and patents that Oracle purchased when it bought Sun Microsystems a few years ago.

In his testimony today, Page made it clear that he saw a clear difference between the "free Java" that Google had a right to use, and the more elaborate forms of Java it could have used only if it had struck a deal with Sun.

"There's free Java and there's the Java that's Sun's technology," said Page. Google negotiated with Sun to explore the possibility of working together to build Android, but ultimately did the work on its own.

Page studiously answered Boies' questions on his own terms, at times bordering on evasive. On a few occasions Judge Alsup told Page to answer a "yes or no" question more directly. "The e-mail chain here seems kind of random," he said of one document presented to him. Another time he looked at a presentation to Google executives and said it looked like it was "not the right version."

The mainstay of Boies' questioning furthered Oracle's key theme: that Google was an outlier, the only company using Java APIs without getting permission from Sun in the form of a license.

"You do know that Google never got a license from Sun, right?" Boies asked at one point.

"I know we worked hard to negotiate a business license with Java," Page said.

At that point, Judge Alsup broke in. "That's a yes or no question," he said. "Is it true that you never got a license?"

"I'm not sure whether we ever got a license," Page said.

Shortly afterwards, Boies asked again: "Did Google ever get a license from Sun, or from Oracle, for Java?"

"I don't think that we did, no."

"Can you name a single company that uses Java APIs that has not taken a license from Sun or Oracle, except for Google?" asked Boies.

"I'm not an expert on that and I don't know."

After being curt with Boies, Page opened up more when he was examined by his own lawyer, Robert Van Nest. He explained that Android was developed as a way to get Google services out to mobile phone users in a more standardized way.

"We had been frustrated getting our software out to people," before Android, Page explained. "We had a closet [at Google] full of almost 100 phones, but it was almost impossible to develop through those phones. We primarily thought [Android] was a great way to get our existing services out to people and make them work—search, e-mail, and so on."

Page also described how the company reached an impasse with Sun. It would have been convenient to use Sun's technology and code, and saved Google "time and trouble," he said. But the price was too high. Google went down its own path, Page said.

"We tried hard to negotiate with Sun," he said. "Ultimately the idea we had for Android was a very open source system, and that was in conflict with things like the TCK, where they [Sun] charge money just to test compatibility. We were unable to convince them on that, and a whole bunch of other issues."

Also testifying today was Edward Screven, a Chief Corporate Architect at Oracle. Screven emphasized the importance of APIs to Oracle's business. Screven testified about the importance of Java and its APIs to Sun's business; he also said that Google had "fragmented and forked" Java by releasing Android.

Screven also testified that Java was the most valuable part of Oracle's purchase of Sun. In doing so, Screven mentioned the purchase price: $7.4 billion. Alsup quickly jumped in at that point, telling the jurors to disregard that figure. He said it has "nothing to do" with this case. The judge had previously warned Oracle's lawyers not to try to put "big numbers" in front of the jury. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison testified yesterday about his company's purchase of Sun, but didn't mention the purchase price.

135 Reader Comments

I'm surprised Google hasn't mentioned how Oracle was fine with them using their APIs until Android became the biggest player.

I never understand this argument.

This is pretty easy. In certain circles, it has been widely reported that Sun's Jonathan Schwartz heartily endorsed Google's announcement of Android; a capture of his November 5, 2007 blogpost is pretty enthusiastic. (That is the same day as the announcement of Android and OHA.)

I'm not sure how that's relevant in this context (or at all, really). Despite the lack of a licensing agreement, is it really so strange that the CEO of the company whose technology was being used to power a next-gen mobile platform would be so enthusiastic? Schwartz has demonstrated many times that his business acumen is not exactly the best.

I don't know that Oracle's argument is strong enough to win the case, but I don't think Schwartz's enthusiasm is all that damaging. Either way, all I was saying is that I don't think there's any evidence to say that the timing of the lawsuit is in any way linked to Android's popularity.

"Ultimately the idea we had for Android was a very open source system..."

Except you couldn't simply use the GPL licensed Java because you wanted to add proprietary apps on top of it. Yep, very open source...

Learn what is open source before commenting. Can I download the source code for Android OS? Yes? Then it is open source.

Out of curiosity, if Java is GPL and Android is Apache, doesn't that mean Google moved code from one licence to the other against the author's wishes? If the GPL rests on copyright law, then that may be a copyright violation.

So, I have only dabbled in code. But I'm going to make analogy, and tell me if I'm misunderstanding.

Sun makes a bunch of machines, but the part they own is a sophisticated engine with an interface where one can use a flathead screwdriver to change multiple different inputs and achieve results with it. It's well-loved and licensed widely.

Google decides the idea is good, but isn't right for what they want. They would like to make a small mobile version that can be installed in a car instead of sitting in a room. They make an engine of their own, but instead of using the same exact same interface, they devised their own using a Phillips screwdriver. The cool thing is if you have a flathead screwdriver laying around still from the good old Sun days, it happens to fit in the interface holes for the Google version, because they wanted to make sure it would cooperate. Success was found by giving the engine away but charging for the car interior and body styles you could put on.

Oracle buys Sun. Oracle combs through the Google engine and finds one part, a needle valve, that a lazy engineer pulled off of the Sun engine when he was working there and put in the Google engine for expediencies sake. Oracle sues.

Good? Bad? Totally misunderstanding the underlying logic? (My money is on the third option.)

So, I have only dabbled in code. But I'm going to make analogy, and tell me if I'm misunderstanding.

Sun makes a bunch of machines, but the part they own is a sophisticated engine with an interface where one can use a flathead screwdriver to change multiple different inputs and achieve results with it. It's well-loved and licensed widely.

Google decides the idea is good, but isn't right for what they want. They would like to make a small mobile version that can be installed in a car instead of sitting in a room. They make an engine of their own, but instead of using the same exact same interface, they devised their own using a Phillips screwdriver. The cool thing is if you have a flathead screwdriver laying around still from the good old Sun days, it happens to fit in the interface holes for the Google version, because they wanted to make sure it would cooperate. Success was found by giving the engine away but charging for the car interior and body styles you could put on.

Oracle buys Sun. Oracle combs through the Google engine and finds one part, a needle valve, that a lazy engineer pulled off of the Sun engine when he was working there and put in the Google engine for expediencies sake. Oracle sues.

Good? Bad? Totally misunderstanding the underlying logic? (My money is on the third option.)

Bad analogy. We are talking about copyrighted works and one can not copyright cars, engines, machines, or screwdrivers. A better analogy would be to something indisputably copyrightable, say, one of the Star Wars movies, where Java is the screenplay and APIs are different scenes in the screenplay, and what actually ends up on the screen is an implementation of the screenplay. In this analogy Android would be more akin to a screenplay written by a Star Wars fan, or someone wanting access to the community of Star Wars fans like Google wanted access to that ready-made community of Java developers. IOW, a derivative work, which is what a good part of this case will be about.

Out of curiosity, if Java is GPL and Android is Apache, doesn't that mean Google moved code from one licence to the other against the author's wishes? If the GPL rests on copyright law, then that may be a copyright violation.

I hasten to add that I'm not taking a side in this, I'm just curious.

Apache never had a Java API license either. Sun wouldn't give them one, though Apache tried for years. If Apache hadn't abandoned Harmony when Oracle sued Sun, they might've been facing a similar lawsuit from Oracle. That's what killed Harmony, especially after IBM saw the writing on the wall and dumped Harmony for a real Java license.

Apache and Harmony are only going to figure in this case as very minor characters since the real questions in the end are what, if anything, is copyrightable in the Java APIs, and does Android infringe that? How Google got from A to B for either sides arguments, is mostly of storytelling value to the jury, in terms of filling in the details of the dispute.

I'm surprised Google hasn't mentioned how Oracle was fine with them using their APIs until Android became the biggest player.

actually as I recall, when oracle first contested this, Android hadn't yet gained much marketshare. They were growing but not nearly as big as they are now.

I think when ppl knew of the Oracle purchase, many suspected they would go after Google regardless. One has to wonder how much of this is a legitimate gripe and how much is a personal matter since Ellison was best buds with Jobs and Jobs felt Android ripped iPhone off.

@ fromhell: Isn't java used in virtually every feature phone available that does more that make phone calls?

But the big money is in smartphones, and that version of Java did not make the transition.

in the older smartphones, java was not a building block of the software. At best, you could run java apps and applets on them, but java did not form any real part of the OS. It was, at best, an add-on. Symbian and pocket PC/WinMo, wasn't based off of java. They could run java apps though.

In Android's case, android is basically built extensively on java. You remove java from android and you have no OS wheras other OS's, you could remove it without any problems if it was even installed in the first place.

theJonTech wrote:

jvillain wrote:

[

The problem is why were they seeking a license in the first place if they didn't need one?

partly because they really did need a license for what they were trying to do but mostly because they were hoping they could partner so the java guys with that expertise and code base could contribute to Android code. It would have made development easier and faster for them to be able to use large blocks of code from a partnership than rewriting the whole thing fresh.

In any case, it's not clear whether the endorsement has any legal weight even if Schwartz knew at the point that Google had just expropriated Sun's sole growth business (the server line having suffered disastrous financials due to the tech bubble).

It's already abundantly clear his endorsement has no legal weight, it's merely one of hundred of stories the jury's going to hear. It's pretty much de rigeur for high tech CEOs to talk out of both sides of their mouths. As CEO of a prominent company in the open source community, known for not suing anyone over its IP, he has to huzzah and hooray almost any open source development. Meanwhile, behind the boardroom doors, deny them a license except on their own terms.

Bad analogy. We are talking about copyrighted works and one can not copyright cars, engines, machines, or screwdrivers. A better analogy would be to something indisputably copyrightable, say, one of the Star Wars movies, where Java is the screenplay and APIs are different scenes in the screenplay, and what actually ends up on the screen is an implementation of the screenplay. In this analogy Android would be more akin to a screenplay written by a Star Wars fan, or someone wanting access to the community of Star Wars fans like Google wanted access to that ready-made community of Java developers. IOW, a derivative work, which is what a good part of this case will be about.

This is also a terrible analogy, and generous to Oracle to a fault. It's extremely unlikely that we'll end up with languages themselves as copyrightable, even if Oracle continues with their plan to salt the earth, while screenplays are and always have been copyrighted.

Comparing Java to Tolkien's languages (which aren't even conclusively copyrighted themselves) as they have is not going to fly considering how derivative it of course is. There's also zero case law to really back them up here...claiming APIs are copyrightable is already a stretch.

"Can you name a single company that uses Java APIs that has not taken a license from Sun or Oracle, except for Google?" asked Boies.

Well... every company that uses Java in an Open-Source environment uses the Java API without paying a cent, directly or indirectly, to Sun or Oracle, and that's a LOT of them. I'm not sure I understand the question, I'm not sure I understand the reasoning for splitting a language in its core syntax and APIs. What's the next step? Does my company suddenly becomes illegal if the judge agrees that using Java APIs requires a license? Is it the end of Java?

True it is an analogy that favors Oracle's argument, but it is not a terrible analogy. One can also make an analogy that favors Google. I believe they have already cited Feist v Rural, where the Supreme Court ruled that the white pages in a phone book are comprised of uncopyrightable elements (names, addresses, and phone numbers). In this analogy, information alone is not copyrightable, and information arranged alphabetically is not enough to be considered creative expression. To Google then, the methods within an API are uncopyrightable elements (like names addresses and phone numbers), and their selection and arrangement for functional efficiency is not enough to be considered creative expression. I believe you will hear Google make these very arguments.

The problem for me is that I personally believe that the Java APIs are nowhere near as simple and straight forward as a phone book. Even when you exclude all the uncopyrightable methods and functionality from the APIs, one could still write the Java APIs in different ways that achieve functional efficiency. In short, a phone book doesn't have the much potential for original expression, but it's unclear whether the same can be said of APIs. In the end it also may well turn out that some APIs as complex as Java's are copyrightable like a screenplay, while others are not being more like a phone book.

Quote:

It's extremely unlikely that we'll end up with languages themselves as copyrightable, even if Oracle continues with their plan to salt the earth, while screenplays are and always have been copyrighted.

Comparing Java to Tolkien's languages (which aren't even conclusively copyrighted themselves) as they have is not going to fly considering how derivative it of course is. There's also zero case law to really back them up here...claiming APIs are copyrightable is already a stretch.

I'd say I don't see the point of comparing the questionable situation of the Java APIs to the questionable situation of Tolkien's languages. Comparing the Java APIs to works where copyrightability is well-established as with screenplays, or conclusively denied as with phone books, will be more illuminating. There is software case law supporting both sides here, some of it conflicting but it is all lower court decisions, citable and arguable, but as far as I know there's no binding precedent for Alsup, and this court's decision will initially be just another of those. Except whatever the outcome is of Alsup's trial, it's extremely likely to be appealed by either or both side, perhaps in time rising as far as the SCOTUS. It's going to be a long process regardless of who wins this phase.

The only thing I'm taking away from this case is that it is bad business to use Java now that it is controlled by Oracle.

I made precisely the same decision a few years ago when Oracle purchased Java. I was thinking about getting into Java at the time, as a general replacement for various development languages/ environments. But then I decided I should definitely not do that.

It's disgusting how the Oracle lawyer is using clever leading questions to paint Google as careless with respect to intellectual property, when it hasn't even been established yet whether you really NEED one of these licenses at all... That's still an open question, based on Google's affidavit, right? It seems to me this lawyer is using old tricks to prejudice the minds of the jurors before he even starts getting onto that question.

would it be contempt of court if a juror aquired the info from a simple google search using the words oracle bought sun? How would the judge even know if they did or not do just that, it certainly isn't outwith the bounds of possibility that the average joe the plumber could find the info if he wanted to.

Yes, it would be contempt of court and the juror would be risking jail time. Juror's are supposed to base their decisions on the evidence produced in court where the opposition can counter it, not hearsay outside of court where neither the defendant nor the prosecutor can respond

Anything is possible, LibreOffice was forked from OpenOffice to spite Oracle. MariaDB was forked from MYSQL by the original creator to spite Oracle.

MariaDB was forked because Oracle had developed a pay-for version of MySQL with new features which they wouldn't let developers implement for the open source MySQL. OpenOffice I'm not sure about, but I think there were concerns that it would go down the same route and, when Oracle wouldn't commit to keeping it completely open source, people broke away

From what I read elsewhere the supposed 9 lines imported the non-free APIs without a license but never used them in the code. So Google's argument would be that its not a breach of licensing or theft if those APIs were never used and Oracle disagreed with that assessment. I think that is the core of the lawsuit.

You read wrong. The 9 line chunk of code is copied verbatim and is a part of every Android device shipped.

I had read that the 9 lines were includes/imports were shipped on android devices, but those libraries were never used in the core of android. If that is incorrect is there any indication online what the 9 line chunk is?

Read his posting history. He's a troll, and a shill, with no intention of lettign things like the facts get in the way of him spreading outright bullshit, like the above.

As to the 9 lines, if it's the stuff from the source tree that wasn't actually implemented, it was never shipped, just something that was contributed to the tree and never used. If it's in actual working code, we don't know if it's contiguous or not, if there are comments that indicate it was Oracle's (originally Sun's) code, or if it just happened to be 9 lines out of 15 million that converged due to the fact that they're trying to achieve the same goal.

There's also the assertion that Google may have written those 9 lines and contributed them to Java themselves.

We don't have any information to indicate any of these theories over another, all we know is that if you read Ruddy's post history of claims regarding those 9 lines, the one in the previous thread has him claiming that Google copied hundreds of PAGES of code, line by line. He never responded to my question of what font size they used to get 9 lines to take up hundreds of pages...

jonnybond wrote:

would it be contempt of court if a juror aquired the info from a simple google search using the words oracle bought sun? How would the judge even know if they did or not do just that, it certainly isn't outwith the bounds of possibility that the average joe the plumber could find the info if he wanted to.

Yes, because they've received detailed instructions not to do any research on the case, use the internet, read/watch the news, etc. Standard fair for any case, and especially high-profile ones like this. If they do it, it can result in a mistrial if it's felt that juror's impartiality has been irreparably compromised.

roken wrote:

First, I don't think they're worried about market adoption at this point, and did you read the part where everyone but google has a license.

The part where everyone that claims to have a Java compatible product and call it Java has a license? Yes. But you don't need a license for a clean-room implementation that isn't claiming to be Java or be compatible with Java, so that fact is actually irrelevant.

mdt wrote:

There was a 9 line function that ended up having exactly the same code as Sun's, if I read it correctly.

The issue was, Google hired a former Sun employee, who worked on that specific piece of code. Apparently, he got lazy and instead of writing 9 lines, he copy/pasted it from some work he'd done previously. Take this with a grain of salt, as it's me remembering something I read in one of the 50 or so accounts I've read on multiple sites. I think it was a Max() function, or some other mathematics function.

From what I've read, there's nothing to indicate the 9 lines out of 15 million are contiguous or not. It's certainly more damning if they are, but that hasn't yet been revealed, at least not in anything I've seen (and the trolls throwing it around and trying to blow it up even more don't exactly have an incentive to cite actual sources or facts.

senate wrote:

"Ultimately the idea we had for Android was a very open source system..."

Except you couldn't simply use the GPL licensed Java because you wanted to add proprietary apps on top of it. Yep, very open source...

Proprietary and open source are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, other than Honeycomb, all Android source has been released (under Apache license, I believe) one the version is ready for release (they witheld Honeycomb because it wasn't built to perform properly on phones, only tablets, and they feared companies installing it anyway to claim the latest version, which would run poorly on that particular device, thus hurting the brand).

They also couldn't use the GPL-licensed Java (desktop version) because Java ME is not licensed the same as Java for the desktop. Mobile java is more restrictive, and requires testing and licensing. They needed to either license or engineer their own. They engineered their own, didn't claim it to be compatible with Java (because it's not), and don't call it Java (because it's not), rather than licensing Java ME.

JoshuaRL wrote:

Good? Bad? Totally misunderstanding the underlying logic? (My money is on the third option.)

After having browsed through the comments here today, one thing I noticed is that no-one has mentioned how this will affect projects like Mono who take the API published from .NET and create an API that works in another OS.

Mono may not be the best example as I think MS has either blessed or given it the nod, but is this not similar to what is happening in this case? There are published API's for Java and Google has taken those API's and written their own code to do this work.

After having browsed through the comments here today, one thing I noticed is that no-one has mentioned how this will affect projects like Mono who take the API published from .NET and create an API that works in another OS.

Mono may not be the best example as I think MS has either blessed or given it the nod, but is this not similar to what is happening in this case? There are published API's for Java and Google has taken those API's and written their own code to do this work.

On the contrary, the potential fallout of such a ridiculous ruling has been mentioned repeatedly in this thread and others. It may not mention Mono specifically, but everyone that comprehends what's going on is quite well aware of the consequences of Oracle successfully extending copyright beyond it's logical or legal limits, as they're attempting.

I've been spending the last couple hours just reading through the filings on groklaw, and honestly, the more I read, the more absurd Oracle's claims look. They're already contradicting themselves, engaging in extremely sketchy and questionable tactics and tricks, working in statements they've been prohibited from making, and precedent, the prior statements from Sun and Oracle, and the law itself, seem to clearly favour Google in this.

It seems like a lot of the comments here are talking specific Java implementations offered by Oracle. Oracle is not suing over this -- they are suing over the API and if you're not a software developer, here's an example to explain the difference:

-----

1) API Name:

* MossyCooking (TM)

2) API:

* Cook.Rice(brown,white,risotto)

3) API Documentation:

* Cook.Rice(brown,white,risotto)** This function cooks rice. Since the different types of rice need different amounts of water and cooking time to prepare properly, pass the rice type as the parameter. This API currently handles 3 different rice types: brown, white and risotto.

4) API Implementation:

* Cook.Rice(rice_type)** put rice in a pot** if rice_type is white, add water equal to the height of of the rice** if rice_type is risotto, add water equal to twice the height of the rice** if rice_type is brown, add water equal to three times the height of the rice** turn on fire and keep pot on fire until water is boiled away

5) MossyCooking JVM/JRE/JSE:

I hire cooks and train them in the MossyCooking API. For $100/hr, I can send a cook out to your home to cook.

-----

#1 -- Google calls the programming language Davlik so there is no trademark infringement.

#3 -- Oracle is not suing over copied documentation so I presume Google rewrote the Davlik Language/Davlik API documentation from scratch using their own words.

#4 -- According to published info, 9 lines out of 15M was copied so this will need a judge/jury to decide the level of infringement. Whether Google wrote the code and submitted it to Sun (Oracle) as part of the open-source project, that'll need more investigation.

#5 -- Google wrote their Davlik implementation from scratch. They are not using any of the Java JRE/JME/JSE packages so whether those were open-sourced or not is irrelevant.

So what this phase of the lawsuit is about is #2 -- Oracle published:

* Cook.Rice(brown,white,risotto)

You are not allowed to Cook.Rice or train somebody to Cook.Rice -- whether you make up the recipe or copy Oracle's -- without getting a license from Oracle to do so.

After having browsed through the comments here today, one thing I noticed is that no-one has mentioned how this will affect projects like Mono who take the API published from .NET and create an API that works in another OS.

Mono may not be the best example as I think MS has either blessed or given it the nod, but is this not similar to what is happening in this case? There are published API's for Java and Google has taken those API's and written their own code to do this work.

On the contrary, the potential fallout of such a ridiculous ruling has been mentioned repeatedly in this thread and others. It may not mention Mono specifically, but everyone that comprehends what's going on is quite well aware of the consequences of Oracle successfully extending copyright beyond it's logical or legal limits, as they're attempting.

I've been spending the last couple hours just reading through the filings on groklaw, and honestly, the more I read, the more absurd Oracle's claims look. They're already contradicting themselves, engaging in extremely sketchy and questionable tactics and tricks, working in statements they've been prohibited from making, and precedent, the prior statements from Sun and Oracle, and the law itself, seem to clearly favour Google in this.

Good? Bad? Totally misunderstanding the underlying logic? (My money is on the third option.)

Really, really bad, and misunderstanding all of it.[/quote]

Could you elaborate? I really don't care what Ruddy has to say on the matter, I've figured out that he's a troll and likes to exaggerate to the point of misconstruing. Any way you could inform me on how my analogy is wrong and how I'm misunderstanding the underlying the issue?

Also, as an aside, I worry about how the jury will find since most of us here are pretty well informed people and we can't even agree on what the point of the issue is. But then again we've seen that before (i.e. Jammie Thomas).

Oh and I love when jurors are told."Ignore that big revealing fact you weren't supposed to hear"

Page sounds careful which is exactly what he SHOULD be in a court case when being questioned by the opposition's lawyer.

"Big revealing fact" is deliberately misleading. It has absolutely no bearing on the case. In fact, since the Judge had already ordered that this sort of behavior not be permitted, he should have been held in contempt.

Good? Bad? Totally misunderstanding the underlying logic? (My money is on the third option.)

Really, really bad, and misunderstanding all of it.

Could you elaborate? I really don't care what Ruddy has to say on the matter, I've figured out that he's a troll and likes to exaggerate to the point of misconstruing. Any way you could inform me on how my analogy is wrong and how I'm misunderstanding the underlying the issue?

Also, as an aside, I worry about how the jury will find since most of us here are pretty well informed people and we can't even agree on what the point of the issue is. But then again we've seen that before (i.e. Jammie Thomas).

I confess, I'm not an expert on the subject myself, only understanding enough to see how bad the analogy is. The best I can think of might be what I gave earlier in this (or another; busy subject of late, for obvious reasons) thread. The APIs might be a bit like the parts of our brains that process phonemes (the component sounds that language is composed of.) You can write all the code you want (language, composed of phonemes), but without the ability to parse it and give it meaning, it does you no good.

A salient point to the case here, at least, is that the language simply won't work without certain APIs. Sun/Oracle even admit this in deposition.

Another possible analogy might be having an API for a multiplication function. With that API, I can use the phrase "x*y" to call the multiplication function, and multiply x, y times. Without that API, there's no such thing as multiplication, and "x*y" has no meaning. Instead, I would have to write out code to manualy instruct the system to take "x" as one variable, and add "x" to itself "y" times (or add "y" to itself "x" times, whichever, if either, is less computationally intensive; that's another thing you can do is include methods to determine and pick the most efficient method).

Many APIs even define basic terminology and use of the language itself (i.e. java.lang), and the language is simply unusable without it.

The problem is why were they seeking a license in the first place if they didn't need one?

Probably because, if they could have gotten it for the right price, it could have saved them time (and therefore money).

Just because you don't need something doesn't mean it couldn't be useful. I would bet you a billion dollars that if Sun was able to give them the right price (one that was BELOW what they estimated they would spend on developing their own solution), Google would have taken it. But they didn't, so they developed their own solution...and are now being sued for it.

Seems clear to me that Java was Sun's intellectual property and they did not want it fragmented and forked like what has happened to Linux! Google didn't like that decision so they went out and did it on their own without a license or permission! That's called stealing!

Sun didn't have the bucks to fight Google, and Google knew that and took advantage of the situation! You can be sure that was one of Sun's top conversations with Ellison when he bought the company! The contract may have had a "sue Google" clause in it that was placed there pissed off Sun executives! Ellison is just keeping up his end of the deal!

I think Google is going to lose this one! Page is going to get painted into a corner and is going to look like a fool if he "doesn't know anything" or "remember anything"! The jury will see through those lies! It will just make Google's position worse! First steal, and then lie to the jury! Do no evil Larry Page! You are now breaking your own rules!

Seems clear to me that Java was Sun's intellectual property and they did not want it fragmented and forked like what has happened to Linux! Google didn't like that decision so they went out and did it on their own without a license or permission! That's called stealing!

Sun didn't have the bucks to fight Google, and Google knew that and took advantage of the situation! You can be sure that was one of Sun's top conversations with Ellison when he bought the company! The contract may have had a "sue Google" clause in it that was placed there pissed off Sun executives! Ellison is just keeping up his end of the deal!

I think Google is going to lose this one! Page is going to get painted into a corner and is going to look like a fool if he "doesn't know anything" or "remember anything"! The jury will see through those lies! It will just make Google's position worse! First steal, and then lie to the jury! Do no evil Larry Page! You are now breaking your own rules!

Poe's law?

1) Linux is not fragmented to any significant degree. Software written for one distribution will, as a rule, work on another. You can install any package manager of your choice, and if all else fails, compile from source.

2) Google didn't like their terms, so they reverse-engineered it, as is perfectly legal (EDIT: so long as they don't claim to either A) be Java-compatible, or B) be Java; Google hasn't claimed either at any point), to get around the need to license it. This is allowed, with plenty of precedent (libdvdcss, for example).

3) Whether or not Sun had the money, no one held a gun to their head to have them publicly praise and endorse Google and Android.

4) So far all the law, claims, and precedent seem to be on Google's side, and Oracle's witnesses have already been caught in blatant contraditions of their own depositions. I haven't seen many credible sources thinking Oracle's chances are high (except maybe Florian Mueller, but I shouldn't need to tell anyone on Ars about him, especially after his announcement of Oracle being a client of his / his working for Oracle; it's not clear which it is).

Seems clear to me that Java was Sun's intellectual property and they did not want it fragmented and forked like what has happened to Linux! Google didn't like that decision so they went out and did it on their own without a license or permission! That's called stealing!

Sun didn't have the bucks to fight Google, and Google knew that and took advantage of the situation! You can be sure that was one of Sun's top conversations with Ellison when he bought the company! The contract may have had a "sue Google" clause in it that was placed there pissed off Sun executives! Ellison is just keeping up his end of the deal!

I think Google is going to lose this one! Page is going to get painted into a corner and is going to look like a fool if he "doesn't know anything" or "remember anything"! The jury will see through those lies! It will just make Google's position worse! First steal, and then lie to the jury! Do no evil Larry Page! You are now breaking your own rules!

Man, during your breaks at Facebook you need to read more articles.

There is a linked article as well as other information provided by many others within the comments section.

Seems clear to me that Java was Sun's intellectual property and they did not want it fragmented and forked like what has happened to Linux! Google didn't like that decision so they went out and did it on their own without a license or permission! That's called stealing!

Sun didn't have the bucks to fight Google, and Google knew that and took advantage of the situation! You can be sure that was one of Sun's top conversations with Ellison when he bought the company! The contract may have had a "sue Google" clause in it that was placed there pissed off Sun executives! Ellison is just keeping up his end of the deal!

I think Google is going to lose this one! Page is going to get painted into a corner and is going to look like a fool if he "doesn't know anything" or "remember anything"! The jury will see through those lies! It will just make Google's position worse! First steal, and then lie to the jury! Do no evil Larry Page! You are now breaking your own rules!

I hope you haven't written a set of specifications on how to apply exclamation marks to the end of every sentence!

Read his posting history. He's a troll, and a shill, with no intention of lettign things like the facts get in the way of him spreading outright bullshit, like the above.

{...}

We don't have any information to indicate any of these theories over another, all we know is that if you read Ruddy's post history of claims regarding those 9 lines, the one in the previous thread has him claiming that Google copied hundreds of PAGES of code, line by line. He never responded to my question of what font size they used to get 9 lines to take up hundreds of pages...

Normally I don't pay attention to angry dweebs who can only ad hom and call names in an effort to shout down someone's argument, but when they lie and put words into my mouth I never said, I have to call them on it. Let's see you quote where I ever said Google copied hundreds of PAGES of code, line by line.

It seems like a lot of the comments here are talking specific Java implementations offered by Oracle. Oracle is not suing over this -- they are suing over the API and if you're not a software developer, here's an example to explain the difference:

You might want to read the actual complaint. Google is claiming infringement of the 37 Java API specifications (documentation) and 12 code files containing verbatim copying—most of which Google expunged when they got sued (except for the remaining 9 lines). This quote from Alsup's denial of Google's motion to dismiss the copyright claims on Summary Judgment, may help you understand what the copyright part of the trial is really about.

Quote:

Google’s argument that APIs are unprotectable methods of operation attacks a straw man. It is not the APIs but rather the specifications for 37 API packages that are accused. Even if Google can show that APIs are methods of operation not subject to copyright protection, that would not defeat Oracle’s infringement claim concerning the accused specifications.

The italic emphasis is in the original. My point being, there are multiple accusations of infringement involving different kinds of copying. What Alsup is calling the specifications is not code, but the reference documentation for the 37 Java API packages.

Basically, Oracle has no leg to stand on and their goal is to mislead the jurors.

Ellison's modus operandi is that even if something is far-reaching, if it's possible to win and profit from it (in his pink-skied, cost-benefit world), he'll pursue it.

Ellison sees Google sitting on a large pie. Ellison sees a way to try to get some of that pie. Ellison will put on the world's biggest dog-n-pony magic show to try to swipe some of that pie, and get Google to keep giving them more of their pie forever after.

This is a dumb lawsuit, everyone knows it, but as long as their's a skunk's asses chance to pull this stink off, and Ellison feels the pay-off will out-weigh the cost of pursuit, he'll go for it.

You are not allowed to Cook.Rice or train somebody to Cook.Rice -- whether you make up the recipe or copy Oracle's -- without getting a license from Oracle to do so.

Wait, so you mean to say that I can't use memcpy() or implement my own variation without paying a license? Or use gtk_init() without paying a license? Or use WinAPI/.NET without paying a license? Because if that's what you are saying there, I will dare to say what you said is wrong... or that I owe millions in royalties to ISO/ANSI, the creators of GTK+ and Microsoft.

True it is an analogy that favors Oracle's argument, but it is not a terrible analogy.

Your analogy was a darnn sight worse than the analogy proposed in the original question.

Honestly, I don't consider myself any sort of expert in matters of "Intellectual Property" (ie. copyright and patents) but the more you explain about copyright, the less I think you know about the subject, yourself.

Anything is possible, LibreOffice was forked from OpenOffice to spite Oracle. MariaDB was forked from MYSQL by the original creator to spite Oracle.

MariaDB was forked because Oracle had developed a pay-for version of MySQL with new features which they wouldn't let developers implement for the open source MySQL. OpenOffice I'm not sure about, but I think there were concerns that it would go down the same route and, when Oracle wouldn't commit to keeping it completely open source, people broke away

Basically, Oracle has no leg to stand on and their goal is to mislead the jurors.

You mean the same way Oracle routinely misleads their customers as well? By taking open source projects and charging money for them by putting their logo on the package? That's Oracle's entire business model.